1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automotive electronic device in which the front surface side of a device main body is covered with a blind panel to hide its existence, so that the electronic device can be protected from a robbery.
2. Description of the Related Art
Automotive electronic devices such as a CD player, a DVD player or a car navigation device may be possibly stolen by breaking window glass when the existence thereof is known outside the vehicle.
In order to protect the electronic device from the above-described robbery, an automotive electronic device as disclosed in, for instance, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. hei 9-123842 has been developed. As shown in FIGS. 9A to 9D, an automotive electronic device 101 has an operating panel 103 arranged in the front part of a device main body 102. The operating panel 103 is moved by a panel driving and operating mechanism (not shown) between a first position (see FIG. 9A) in which an operating surface 104 is located in a front surface and a second position (see FIG. 9D) in which a surface 105 except the operating surface of the operating panel 103 is located in the front surface. Further, as shown in FIGS. 10A and 10B, there has been an electronic device that an operating part 106 and a display part 107 are provided on the front surface of a device main body 102, they are covered with a blind panel (blindfold panel) 108 to hide the existence of the automotive electronic device when they are not used, and the blind panel 108 is moved to a position in which the blind panel 108 does not interfere with the operating part 106 and the display part 107 upon using.
In the above-described conventional automotive electronic device, since both the operating part 106 and the display part 107 are arranged on the operating surface 104 of the operating panel 103 or the front surface of the device main body 102, there have been such problems as described below.
Since the operating part 106 and the display part 107 undergo a spatial restriction due to their existence, so that the size of the operating part 106 or the display part 107 cannot be enlarged. Therefore, the operability of the operating part 106 or the visibility of the display part 107 is not good.
Further, since the operating part 106 and the display part 107 are provided on the same surface, a part of the display part 107 is inconveniently hidden by the tips of fingers by which the operating part 106 is operated. Therefore, sometimes, the display part 107 is hardly visually recognized while operating the operating part 106.